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Despite the widespread use of cancer chemotherapy drugs, the molecular mechanisms of action of many of them remain unclear. Some of these drugs, such as taxol, are known to affect the dynamics of microtubule assembly and stop the process of cell division in prophase-prometaphase. Recently, new spatial structures of microtubules and individual tubulin oligomers have emerged associated with various regulatory proteins and cancer chemotherapy drugs. However, knowledge of the spatial structure in itself does not provide information about the mechanism of action of drugs.

In this work, we applied the molecular dynamics method to study the behavior of taxol-bound tubulin oligomers and used our previously developed method for analyzing the conformation of tubulin protofilaments, based on the calculation of modified Euler angles. Recent structures of microtubule fragments have demonstrated that tubulin protofilaments bend not in the radial direction, as many researchers assume, but at an angle of approximately 45◦ from the radial direction. However, in the presence of taxol, the bending direction shifts closer to the radial direction. There was no significant difference between the mean bending and torsion angles of the studied tubulin structures when bound to the various natural regulatory ligands, guanosine triphosphate and guanosine diphosphate. The intra-dimer bending angle was found to be greater than the interdimer bending angle in all analyzed trajectories. This indicates that the bulk of the deformation energy is stored within the dimeric tubulin subunits and not between them. Analysis of the structures of the latest generation of tubulins indicated that the presence of taxol in the tubulin beta subunit pocket allosterically reduces the torsional rigidity of the tubulin oligomer, which could explain the underlying mechanism of taxol’s effect on microtubule dynamics. Indeed, a decrease in torsional rigidity makes it possible to maintain lateral connections between protofilaments, and therefore should lead to the stabilization of microtubules, which is what is observed in experiments. The results of the work shed light on the phenomenon of dynamic instability of microtubules and allow to come closer to understanding the molecular mechanisms of cell division.

The results of theoretical researches of molecular probe diffusion as well as its impact to probe fluorescence spectra are represented in this paper. The case with compound introduction to biological liquid as an injection has been considered. Shown, fluorescence spectra shifts of injected probe is a result of diffusion processes in biological liquid as well as its immobilization to contained structures (compound of peptides nature, different cell types and others).

Images of surface topography of ultrathin magnetic films have been used for Monte Carlo simulations in the framework of the ferromagnetic Ising model to study the hysteresis and thermal properties of nanomaterials. For high performance calculations was used super-scalable parallel algorithm for the finding of the equilibrium configuration. The changing of a distribution of spins on the surface during the reversal of the magnetization and the dynamics of nanodomain structure of thin magnetic films under the influence of changing external magnetic field was investigated.

Soil as a complex multifunctional open system is one of the most difficult object for modeling. In spite of serious achievements in the soil system modeling, existed models do not reflect all aspects and processes of soil organic matter mineralization and humification. The problems and “hot spots” in the modeling of the dynamics of soil organic matter and biophylous elements were identified on a base of creation and wide implementation of ROMUL and EFIMOD models. The following aspects are discussed: further theoretical background; improving the structure of models; preparation and uncertainty of the initial data; inclusion of all soil biota (microorganisms, micro- and meso-fauna) as factors of humification; impact of soil mineralogy on C and N dynamics; hydro-thermal regime and organic matter distribution in whole soil profile; vertical and horizontal migration of soil organic matter. An effective feedback from modellers to experimentalists is necessary to solve the listed problems.

This paper studies a model of a population with non-overlapping generations and density-dependent regulation of birth rate. The population breeds seasonally, and its reproductive potential is determined genetically. The model proposed combines an ecological dynamic model of a limited population with non-overlapping generations and microevolutionary model of its genetic structure dynamics for the case when adaptive trait of birth rate controlled by a single diallelic autosomal locus with allelomorphs A and a. The study showed the genetic composition of the population, namely, will it be polymorphic or monomorphic, is mainly determined by the values of the reproductive potentials of heterozygote and homozygotes. Moreover, the average reproductive potential of mature individuals and intensity of self-regulation processes determine population dynamics. In particularly, increasing the average value of the reproductive potential leads to destabilization of the dynamics of age group sizes. The intensity of self-regulation processes determines the nature of emerging oscillations, since scenario of stability loss of fixed points depends on the values of this parameter. It is shown that patterns of occurrence and evolution of cyclic dynamics regimes are mainly determined by the features of life cycle of individuals in population. The life cycle leading to existence of non-overlapping generation gives isolated subpopulations in different years, which results in the possibility of independent microevolution of these subpopulations and, as a result, the complex dynamics emergence of both stage structure and genetic one. Fixing various adaptive mutations will gradually lead to genetic (and possibly morphological) differentiation and to differences in the average reproductive potentials of subpopulations that give different values of equilibrium subpopulation sizes. Further evolutionary growth of reproductive potentials of limited subpopulations leads to their number fluctuations which can differ in both amplitude and phase.

The paper considers a method for studying panel data based on the use of agglomerative hierarchical clustering — grouping objects based on the similarities and differences in their features into a hierarchy of clusters nested into each other. We used 2 alternative methods for calculating Euclidean distances between objects — the distance between the values averaged over observation interval, and the distance using data for all considered years. Three alternative methods for calculating the distances between clusters were compared. In the first case, the distance between the nearest elements from two clusters is considered to be distance between these clusters, in the second — the average over pairs of elements, in the third — the distance between the most distant elements. The efficiency of using two clustering quality indices, the Dunn and Silhouette index, was studied to select the optimal number of clusters and evaluate the statistical significance of the obtained solutions. The method of assessing statistical reliability of cluster structure consisted in comparing the quality of clustering on a real sample with the quality of clustering on artificially generated samples of panel data with the same number of objects, features and lengths of time series. Generation was made from a fixed probability distribution. At the same time, simulation methods imitating Gaussian white noise and random walk were used. Calculations with the Silhouette index showed that a random walk is characterized not only by spurious regression, but also by “spurious clustering”. Clustering was considered reliable for a given number of selected clusters if the index value on the real sample turned out to be greater than the value of the 95% quantile for artificial data. A set of time series of indicators characterizing production in the regions of the Russian Federation was used as a sample of real data. For these data only Silhouette shows reliable clustering at the level p < 0.05. Calculations also showed that index values for real data are generally closer to values for random walks than for white noise, but it have significant differences from both. Since three-dimensional feature space is used, the quality of clustering was also evaluated visually. Visually, one can distinguish clusters of points located close to each other, also distinguished as clusters by the applied hierarchical clustering algorithm.

The article examines the impact of non-market actions of participants in oligopolistic markets on the market structure. The following actions of one of the market participants aimed at increasing its market share are analyzed: 1) price manipulation; 2) blocking investments of stronger oligopolists; 3) destruction of produced products and capacities of competitors. Linear dynamic games with a quadratic criterion are used to model the strategies of oligopolists. The expediency of their use is due to the possibility of both an adequate description of the evolution of markets and the implementation of two mutually complementary approaches to determining the strategies of oligopolists: 1) based on the representation of models in the state space and the solution of generalized Riccati equations; 2) based on the application of operational calculus methods (in the frequency domain) which owns the visibility necessary for economic analysis.

The article shows the equivalence of approaches to solving the problem with maximin criteria of oligopolists in the state space and in the frequency domain. The results of calculations are considered in relation to a duopoly, with indicators close to one of the duopolies in the microelectronic industry of the world. The second duopolist is less effective from the standpoint of costs, though more mobile. Its goal is to increase its market share by implementing the non-market methods listed above.

Calculations carried out with help of the game model, made it possible to construct dependencies that characterize the relationship between the relative increase in production volumes over a 25-year period of weak and strong duopolists under price manipulation. Constructed dependencies show that an increase in the price for the accepted linear demand function leads to a very small increase in the production of a strong duopolist, but, simultaneously, to a significant increase in this indicator for a weak one.

Calculations carried out with use of the other variants of the model, show that blocking investments, as well as destroying the products of a strong duopolist, leads to more significant increase in the production of marketable products for a weak duopolist than to a decrease in this indicator for a strong one.

The work focuses on mathematical modeling of light influence mechanisms on macromolecular composition of microalgae batch culture. It is shown that even with a single limiting factor, the growth of microalgae is associated with a significant change in the biochemical composition of the biomass in any part of the batch curve. The well-known qualitative models of microalgae are based on concepts of enzymatic kinetics and do not take into account the possible change of the limiting factor during batch culture growth. Such models do not allow describing the dynamics of the relative content of biochemical components of cells. We proposed an alternative approach which is based on generally accepted two-stage photoautotrophic growth of microalgae. Microalgae biomass can be considered as the sum of two macromolecular components — structural and reserve. At the first stage, during photosynthesis a reserve part of biomass is formed, from which the biosynthesis of cell structures occurs at the second stage. Model also assumes the proportionality of all biomass structural components which greatly simplifies mathematical calculations and experimental data fitting. The proposed mathematical model is represented by a system of two differential equations describing the synthesis of reserve biomass compounds at the expense of light and biosynthesis of structural components from reserve ones. The model takes into account that a part of the reserve compounds is spent on replenishing the pool of macroergs. The rates of synthesis of structural and reserve forms of biomass are given by linear splines. Such approach allows us to mathematically describe the change in the limiting factor with an increase in the biomass of the enrichment culture of microalgae. It is shown that under light limitation conditions the batch curve must be divided into several areas: unlimited growth, low cell concentration and optically dense culture. The analytical solutions of the basic system of equations describing the dynamics of macromolecular biomass content made it possible to determine species-specific coefficients for various light conditions. The model was verified on the experimental data of biomass growth and dynamics of chlorophyll $a$ content of the red marine microalgae Pоrphуridium purpurеum batch culture.

Mechanical properties of eukaryotic cells play an important role in life cycle conditions and in the development of pathological processes. In this paper we discuss the problem of parameters identification and verification of viscoelastic constitutive models based on force spectroscopy data of living cells. It is proposed to use one-dimensional continuous wavelet transform to calculate the relaxation function. Analytical calculations and the results of numerical simulation are given, which allow to obtain relaxation functions similar to each other on the basis of experimentally determined force curves and theoretical stress-strain relationships using wavelet differentiation algorithms. Test examples demonstrating correctness of software implementation of the proposed algorithms are analyzed. The cell models are considered, on the example of which the application of the proposed procedure of identification and verification of their parameters is demonstrated. Among them are a structural-mechanical model with parallel connected fractional elements, which is currently the most adequate in terms of compliance with atomic force microscopy data of a wide class of cells, and a new statistical-thermodynamic model, which is not inferior in descriptive capabilities to models with fractional derivatives, but has a clearer physical meaning. For the statistical-thermodynamic model, the procedure of its construction is described in detail, which includes the following. Introduction of a structural variable, the order parameter, to describe the orientation properties of the cell cytoskeleton. Setting and solving the statistical problem for the ensemble of actin filaments of a representative cell volume with respect to this variable. Establishment of the type of free energy depending on the order parameter, temperature and external load. It is also proposed to use an oriented-viscous-elastic body as a model of a representative element of the cell. Following the theory of linear thermodynamics, evolutionary equations describing the mechanical behavior of the representative volume of the cell are obtained, which satisfy the basic thermodynamic laws. The problem of optimizing the parameters of the statisticalthermodynamic model of the cell, which can be compared both with experimental data and with the results of simulations based on other mathematical models, is also posed and solved. The viscoelastic characteristics of cells are determined on the basis of comparison with literature data.

Muscle contraction is controlled by Ca2+ ions via regulatory proteins, troponin and tropomyosin, associated with thin actin filaments in sarcomeres. Depending on the Ca2+ concentration, the thin filament rearranges so that tropomyosin moves along its surface, opening or closing access to actin for the motor domains of myosin molecules, and causing contraction or relaxation, respectively. Numerous point amino acid substitutions in tropomyosin are known, leading to genetic pathologies — myo- and cardiomyopathies caused by changes in the structural and functional properties of the thin filament. The results of molecular dynamics modeling of a fragment of a thin filament of cardiac muscle sarcomeres formed by fibrillar actin and wildtype tropomyosin or with amino acid substitutions: the double stabilizing substitution D137L/G126R and the cardiomyopathic substitution S215L are presented. For numerical calculations, we used a new model of a thin filament fragment containing 26 actin monomers and 4 tropomyosin dimers, with a refined structure of the region of overlap of neighboring tropomyosin molecules in each of the two tropomyosin strands. The simulation results showed that tropomyosin significantly increases the bending stiffness of the thin filament, as previously found experimentally. The double stabilizing replacement D137L/G126R leads to a further increase in this rigidity, and the replacement S215L, on the contrary, leads to its decrease, which also corresponds to experimental data. At the same time, these substitutions have different effects on the angular mobility of the actin helix and only slightly modulate the angular mobility of tropomyosin cables relative to the actin helix and the population of hydrogen bonds between negatively charged tropomyosin residues and positively charged actin residues. The results of the verification of the new model demonstrate that its quality is sufficient for the numerical study of the effect of single amino acid substitutions on the structure and dynamics of thin filaments and study the effects leading to dysregulation of muscle contraction. This model can be used as a useful tool for elucidating the molecular mechanisms of some genetic diseases and assessing the pathogenicity of newly discovered genetic variants.